US farmers in biofuel heaven but expert warns Ireland of ‘false economy’
He told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade, and Employment that US farmers used to sell corn (maize) at $2.50 per bushel, but the price for this autumn’s crop is $7.50. “They are in heaven. The waiting list for John Deere harvesters is currently two years, because everybody is changing machinery. They are even buying houses in Florida.
However, it is a false economy. When I visited a bio-ethanol plant, I was struck by the trainloads of coal brought in every second day. On the best calculation, the energy produced at the plant is only 1.4 times the amount consumed. Some would even claim the ratio is negative over the plant’s full life cycle.”
He told the committee that Ireland would face the same arguments about energy efficiency, if we were to produce energy from wheat — even though Irish farmers grow wheat more efficiently than anywhere else, producing the highest yields in the world. He said “the great promise” is that the next generation of bio-ethanols will be based on converted, woody tissues, such as switch grass in America, or willow plantations in Ireland. He visited a factory in Canada, which produces 250 litres of ethanol from a tonne of wheat straw.
“Technically, therefore, it can be shown to work, but it is enormously costly and I do not know if it will survive, even if the cost of oil reaches $150 per barrel. We should begin trials to keep on top of the best technology, but it is not economically and technically secure enough for us to put all our eggs in one basket.”
* Strong links between biofuel policies and rising greenhouse gas emissions and food prices have convinced Energy Minister, Eamon Ryan to pull back from the target of fuelling 5.75% of cars and lorries with biofuel by 2010. Just one percent of transport fuel come from biofuels in Ireland, and a five-fold increase would make it difficult to deliver on sustainability criteria. On waste products that don’t affect world prices or land use, the professor said: ‘‘The use of tallow is a perfect example, where waste material that we’re currently exporting out of this country could be used to develop biodiesel.”
